The Usui Memorial

In the summer of 1997, Shiya Fleming,
a friend and student of mine, took several close-ups of the Usui memorial
so we could translate the text ourselves.

With the help of Emiko Arai, I pieced them
together in Corel Draw to get this composite photo. There were about
36 photos to choose from so we took the shots with the best detail. To
give you an example of one of them, look at the shot of the lower
left corner, which is a bit difficult to read.

I have a couple blowups here so you can
see the text, depending on how fast you can download the graphics.

If you can read Kanji, especially the pre-1947
version, you might want the larger file.

We learned a few new things, such as the
fact the memorial was erected in February, 1927, a month before Usui's
son erected the family grave stone. We discovered that
retired Rear Admiral Ushida(also pronounced Guida according
to my friends) wrote the text for the tablet. He was Usui-san's
successor as head of the Reiki Society. Also, we learned that Dr.
Masayuki Okada, a professor, was the editor of the inscription.
He may have been a student of Usui-sensei's as well.

Melissa Riggal used the photos above to
create a modern day Japanese version of the text, and has placed it at
the Usui-Do web site.
This should help those who can read kanji, but not the pre-1947 version.

If you have comments or suggestions,
Contact
Me. I will try to answer them all.